An Awaited Wind Finally Blows
by MircThomas19
Summary: When Gaara was brought back from the dead at the cost of an elder's own, Naruto thought that he will actually get what he wanted. Instead, he was wrong once again but he won't be again. He will show them all that he isn't what they all think of him. Serious and Strong Naruto


**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

An Awaited Wind Finally Blows

So It Happens At Last

On the border of Wind Country and Fire Country,

A cell of three Shinobi were hopping between treetops. It was their preferred method of travel since doing the roads were much slower and will leave them out in the open too much for the comfort of any Shinobi.

One of them was a teenaged boy, named Uzumaki Naruto. He has blonde, spiky hair and blue eyes. His trademark characteristic are the three whisker markings on his cheeks. Naruto originally wore green goggles on his forehead, though he discards them after becoming a Genin.

Naruto wears a more form fitting outfit after wearing out his original one while training with a traveling pervert, with a T-shirt or mesh armor underneath. While retaining the swirls and orange pants, the blue pieces of his outfit changes to black: his forehead protector (which is now longer), sandals, and orange jacket, the black color showing more prominence than the blue did originally. During his battle with Pain, Naruto briefly wore a short-sleeved red coat with a black flame pattern around the hem and carried a large scroll on his back.

There was a girl of his age by his side, Sakura Haruno. Sakura has fair skin, green eyes, and pink hair. In her youth, she wore her hair as bangs in order to cover her large forehead and fend off her classmates' calling her "Forehead Girl". Sakura's typical outfit consists of a red top with the same design as the upper-half of her previous outfit. Accompanying this are black gloves, low-heel, knee-high boots, black shorts underneath a short grey apron skirt, and grey elbow protectors. The cloth of her forehead protector is changed to red and she starts carrying a medical pouch.

And the man that was towering over them was Kakashi Hatake. Kakashi has a strong resemblance to his father, so much so that they are sometimes mistaken for each other: he has spiky silver hair often oriented to his left-side, dark grey eyes, and typically a relaxed, heavy-lidded expression. During the Third Shinobi World War, his left eye was damaged, leaving a vertical scar from the injury. The eye was shortly afterwards replaced with a Sharingan, which he keeps covered with his forehead protector when he isn't using it. This, combined with the mask he has used to cover the lower half of his face for seemingly his entire life, prevents most of his face from being visible. Even his ninken have so rarely ever seen his full face that they have various ideas of what he looks like. Kakashi wears Konoha's standard infantry clothing: a flak jacket, dark blue pants, and a long-sleeve shirt. He also wears finger-less gloves with metal plates on the backhand and is seen with a chain necklace underneath.

But while the girl was content with her mission successful, the man was worried. Worried about the boy, and for good reason. Naruto hasn't even smiled since the mission across the border to the desert village of Suna.

"Sensei, why can't anyone say 'thank you' to me for once?" Kakashi remembered a certain blonde asking him this three years ago, when the two were teacher-and-student. They, along with five more Shinobi, were returning to home village of Konoha from another village that was their neighbor, Suna. But the trip wasn't pleasant for any of them.

They had heavy heads and hearts after some kind of development that occurred when they completed their mission to return Gaara, the leader of Kazekage of Suna, back home. The development that happens to be centered on that same certain blonde who stills follows his unofficial nickname; the Most Unpredictable Shinobi in Konoha and perhaps the whole world.

XXXXX

Moments ago, when Gaara awoke from his deathly experience following the Sand Spirit's extraction from his body and removed of the chakra from Gaara's own reserves, everyone were overjoyed to have their Kazekage back.

Gaara has fair skin, green eyes, and short red hair; for most if his life his hair is allowed to remain naturally spiky, but by adulthood it is combed and parted to the right. He has no distinctive pupils or eyebrows, the latter of which others sometimes make fun of. He's had tanuki-like black rings around his eyes his whole life. As a child, he carved the kanji for "love" (愛, ai) on the left side of his forehead, which his hair is parted in order for it to be kept visible. Many girls in Suna start to consider Gaara handsome.

Gaara wears a long-sleeved crimson coat and full-length dark trousers with a pair. Over the coat he wears two buckled belts, a grey vest held in place by a single strap over his left shoulder, and two buckled belts which he also uses to carry his gourd. On certain occasions he wears the typical Kazekage garb and during the Fourth Shinobi World War he wears Suna's typical flak jacket.

And Naruto was glad to have the man he saw as a long-lost brother back as well. But if Naruto was paying attention to the crowds, he would have seen a couple of an admirers to Gaara charge for him. That was when they did something that set him off; they pushed him aside like a housefly to get to Gaara.

It didn't hurt, it happened all the time but it wasn't his bones or skin that hurt. It was his heart and mind that hurt. After all, Naruto was one of the people responsible for bringing Gaara back; sure Chiyo, one of the elders from Suna, was using the technique but she didn't have enough chakra to bring Gaara back. It was Naruto using his own chakra to supply the technique while Chiyo performed it. That meant that Naruto was equally responsible for bringing Gaara back and not even Gaara himself said thank you. No one else ever did, not Gaara's former teacher, not Gaara's siblings or even the Konoha Shinobi teams ever did.

"Why?" Naruto grumbled, not caring if someone heard him as he got up from the ground. "Iruka-sensei told me not to worry about ranks and look what it got me all because I am still a Genin." Naruto finally got back up to his feet and started to walk away when he ran into Kankuro, Gaara's older brother.

Kankuro wore a black, baggy, full body suit with a red and yellow circle on the front. He also wears a black hood which covered his head completely, and had cat-like ears and his forehead protector on his forehead. Both this and later outfits are derived from traditional Bunraku puppeteer costumes; Bunraku puppeteers usually wear black outfits and hoods so as not to distract from their puppets. He also wears gloves and carries his puppets on his back.

Now, Kankuro once again changed his face-paint. He also has a new puppet, as well as wearing a black outfit consisting of a long top and trousers with a red sash around his waist. He is revealed to have brown hair. His hood changes later on when seen again and wears a kimono type garment. He carries his puppets on his back still, only they are now in scrolls. He also sports a new face paint. It is now starting from one cheek to the lips and to the end of the other cheek, and another line starting from the top of the upper lip to the bottom of the chin. It looks like it forms the letter T.

"Don't worry about it." Kankuro smiled which didn't make Naruto feel any better. "Girls always go for the real guys with the real fillings and stuff. They are naturally attracted to the strong ones." Naruto wasn't sure if that was to make him feel better or not, he just ignored it.

"Thanks for nothing, don't bother me again." Naruto said in a grumpy tone that Kankuro ignored because of that reason. But no one noticed that while they were excited to have their leader back, no one noticed that there was one person currently absent with the exemption of Naruto.

"Where did Lady Chiyo go?"

"I thought you still have her body!?"

"We need to give her a burial for single handily bringing back out Kazekage!"

Cries came and it was bothering Gaara since he had to feel the rigor mortis in his former dead body. Then he realized that he was caught the crowd that Gaara never said thank you to Naruto.

Meanwhile,

"Hey! Isn't that Lady Chiyo!?" Naruto sighed, in both disbelief and exhaustion. After all, he did had to carry this dead body and ignore the stench all the way back to the Suna village.

"Yes, yes it is." Naruto answered and pretty soon, he was crowded at the sight of this development. "The Akatsuki got away with their prize, almost leaving Gaara to completely dead. Granny Chiyo had the solution but she had to give up her life to bring your leader back. And she was going to fail if I didn't give her the energy she needed."

The crowds were silent and praised Chiyo for her sacrifice that ultimately benefited the entire village. Most leaders calm to love their village but their actions speak of self-love, mostly. "Thank you young man. Is there anything we can give in return?"

Naruto felt bad, people were talking to him like he was asking for something for bringing back a dead crone's body. "There is. My chakra nature is Wind and this is the Wind Country so I will love to learn as much as I can from your archives. Also, I need a complete overall in my stance and uniform. Give me your best."

The crowds smirked. It was easy and simple, unlike what they were hoping not for Naruto to ask. Plenty of people asked for something slightly self-centered when saving someone's life. And it was the best they can do for a Genin who brought back the body of their highest respected elders and told them of the good news around Gaara.

And when Gaara did returned with the crowd of Shinobi that saw his reawakening, Naruto already had a complete change with his outfit. Instead of an orange jacket, it was a black and blue one with matching pants and sandals while anything orange were hidden under the jacket. And his belt was filled to the teeth and to the brim of its pockets with kunai, shuriken, explosive notes and the whole nine yards.

Once Gaara sked to see Naruto, the Genin was in the archives. He was studying and writing off some copies of the Shinobi basics in Ninjutsu, Taijutsu and Bukijutsu which all include Futon concepts and techniques. "Naruto…" Gaara muttered to himself; he had hoped that his close friend, the closes to being brothers in circumstance, hadn't changed too much after how his people treated him.

XXXXX

Back to the present,

"Would you be quiet about that!? You can't get a 'thank you' for everything you do!" Sakura yelled in frustration and never noticed that didn't even faze Naruto who whispered,

"I don't get one for anything I do…" And the sad fact was that even Kakashi never heard that or even considered the thought.

"Shut up!" Sakura said bluntly, not even wanting to hear what Naruto has to say. She was still a little ticked off that her teammate swiped the dead body of Lady Chiyo and left without saying a word. What didn't make her day was that Naruto never even tried to make an effort to apologize. He just focused on a bunch of scrolls that he copied directly.

"Sakura-chan, maybe you should listen to Naruto-kun…" Kakashi tried his best to hopefully keep this team together. After how one of his students left even with all the extra training and comfort, the cyclops didn't want it to happen again.

"I am not listening to anything a Baka like him will say! It will be stupid and makes no sense!" Sakura shouted out while Kakashi still tried to calm her down,

"It is okay Hatake," Naruto said and ignored Sakura telling him to call Kakashi under a 'more proper title'. "Haruno-san is a Chunin, she doesn't have time or reason to listen to a whining and worthless Genin like me."

"Naruto…"

"I am not holding a grudge at Suna. But that incident is a trigger. A trigger that should have happened ages ago." Naruto said, for the last time until Team Seven will return to Konoha. Once they do, Naruto has a lot of work to do and very, very little time to do it.

End of Chapter 1.

 ***I had this idea but after a handful of failures rocking my boat, I admit that I was a little afraid to publish it. It is amazing how there are so many stupid things that people like me fear in place of death or danger.***


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